Jack joined the Transition Program at West Campus in the fall of 2018 after completing his high school graduation requirements. In his first two years at West Campus, a majority of Jack’s time was spent at various job placements trying to find the best fit for him. Jack’s first job was at Northshore Gym where he cleaned equipment, vacuumed, and washed and dried towels. Jack’s second job placement was at a Post Time where he cleaned the windows, wiped down the tables, and swept the floors. Jack’s final job placement was at Horsefeather where he cleaned the break room, organized the office, folded towels, and collected food dishes around the facility.
As Jack and his family prepare for him to age out, he will be attending the Misericordia day program until they finish building a new home where he plans to move into full time. In preparation for this, Jack’s IEP team has focused their efforts on duplicating a schedule around community trips that are more practical to what his day will look like at Misericordia. In order to do this, we have set up a schedule that consists of grocery shopping once a week, volunteer experience at Bernie’s Book Bank where he goes for two hours once a week and stickers books that are distributed to at-risk children in the community, a full day at the college, a weekly on-site day at Misericordia, and then a full community day on Fridays where we do various activities.
As part of his transition, the transition program, his family and Misericordia have been working together very closely to try and ensure it is as easy on Jack as possible. At Misericordia, Jack will primarily be working with two aides who have been working really hard to learn as much about him as they can. For the last month, they have been coming to various community outings to see how his day is structured and what he is successful with and the areas where he could use more support. Additionally, he has been going to Misericordia once a week and his aide has been going with him to support him and the staff when necessary. Each time his aide goes he fades the level of support he is providing a little bit with the ultimate goal of him going on his own and completing his work completely independently.
The Program of the Month is Lake County Center for Independent Living.
LCCIL is a program based around helping people with disabilities that live in Lake and McHenry County. All of their programs fall under their five main services; Information & Referral, Independent Living Skills Training, Peer mentoring, Advocacy, and Transition. The whole program is free to use for people with disabilities. They offer support groups that meet once a month Words of Wisdom (WOW) a support group for all people with disabilities meets the 2nd Wednesday of each month and Heads Up! a support group for people who have suffered a traumatic brain injury meets the 4th Tuesday of each month. You can find more information about Lake County Center for Independent Living at their website https://www.lccil.org/
NSSED Weekly Update 11/6
NSSED Weekly Update 11/20
November news from NSSRA